That book by the nuclear scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project who, after the bomb, became a slightly crazed/very lovable/prolific postal-worker who founded the idea of Found Poetry. A re-release. A-ppropriately.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Poetry is perhaps the genre most willing to be combined--with prose, visual arts, music, advertising, conversation, etc. Perhaps because it requires no more than a vague textual element--and sometimes less than that--to be included in its "ranks."

Then let us consider fashion as a realm to conquer, and seek out the successes of such a pursuit. Like Mallarmé's La Dernière Mode, for example—"one of French literature's greatest enigmas"—a fashion magazine written under multiple pseudonyms at the height of M.'s literary powers.

I lent my copy to a friend, but otherwise I would pepper in some quotations of Mme de Ponty on the seasonlessness of jewels. Or more on her theory that: "A fashionable woman does not suffer financial pressures, because Fashion has, precisely, full power to defeat them...The ‘bon ton’ of Fashion, which forbids it to propose anything aesthetically or morally disgraceful..."Where do these fields combine, and what strange creatures reign over that glittery Venn intersection--?

Here's where it doesn't get exciting:this Clothing Line --> Poetry Fashion

"I am extremely disappointed to see that we have used practically no pearls at all in the past few issues...I speak of this very often -- and as soon as I stop speaking the pearls disappear...We are on the verge of a drastic emergency."

The poet Lawrence Giffin's "Spinoza's Ethics" seems to respond with a direct answer. And I'm going to respond to my temptation to include the full poem here, by doing that: